Pages

Friday, 28 October 2011

A Tragic Island Tale: Sympathy Saturday

﻿

Westing on Unst, Shetland

A tragic island tale from Scotland.

On Unst, Shetland, Peter Smith and his wife Mary had five children - three boys and two girls. The elder two boys, William aged 14 and Francis 10 years old, both died on the same day - 14th March 1919.

On checking further, it was found that they had both drowned whilst they were trying to rescue their pet dog from a lochan, near their house.

The third and youngest son is still alive at the grand age of 97, as is his wife. Sadly their only child died at the age of 8 months.

A story from my third cousin Stuart who recently visited Shetland

to research his Smith ancestors.

Sympathy Saturday is a blogging prompt from www.Geneabloggers.comto encourage writers to record their family history

How sad. How good that your cousin was able to find out what happened though. If you are anything like me, a common death date for two children would have bugged me to no end, if I didn't know what happened.

About Me

I have been interested in family history for years. It all began when I was allowed as a child to look through the old family photographs and memorabilia kept in a shoebox in the cupboard at my grandfather's house. That treat started me on a fascinating ancestral trail.